Smiling Faces - The Undisputed Truth

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

I didn't discuss the case months ago when it was in the news for several reasons, with the main one being my belief that federal indictments were coming for others involved. Also, one of the parties reached out to me and I didn't want to publicize his plight. Now I'm not so sure what's really going on. I'm sure most of my blog readers read about the case in the news though:

Jennifer Richmond was sentenced to 38 months in a Florida prison on July 25, 2014. This was an Orlando MBI case - you know, the overzealous morals crusaders that harassed me for years and arrested me on racketeering and conspiracy charges. I was acquitted on both counts by a jury of my peers, but Jennifer was coerced into this lousy plea deal. And Jennifer was an escort and admitted prostitute, but never owned a service.

Ms. Richmond will spend just under 3 years in a Florida hellhole prison because she made money working as a prostitute in Orlando and had lots of fun doing it. You can look her up on the Florida Department of Corrections website. Just click on "Offender Search" in the top navigation bar, click on the first link to search all databases and enter only last name and first name.

The other two parties named in the article have not been charged with any count anywhere - not state or federal. The other woman bragging to the MBI about how much money she made that is named in the article is Christina Lynn Davis. Hamid, the alleged agency owner, was never indicted or charged either.

Really? The whacks at the MBI along with their pals in the State Attorney's Office managed to force a guilty plea on a racketeering count out of a naive sex worker.

I heard that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was threatening Jennifer Richmond after she was taken to the Orange County jail. They demanded to know where the money was and allegedly told her that she had three choices: direct them to the money; life in prison; or suicide. Then came the plea deal, which was clearly coerced.

No one else is charged in this case. Just this naive sex worker that was enjoying life in Orlando, until the MBI came along. So where are all of the sex worker rights organizations? Maybe some of them will see this post with Ms. Richmond's sentence, which has received zero publicity, and come to her aid.

7 comments:

I just came to this article from your comment on the "Honest Courtesan" blog. I'm on Twitter and one of my causes is to do what I can to get sex work fully decriminalized. If I can be of any help on Twitter please let me know. I'm glad to retweet things. I wonder how many REAL crime victims weren't helped while this lady was going through this arrest, etc. Horrible.

I appreciate your cause and was truly surprised at Maggie's response that this sort of sentence is normal today. Normal where? I also reached out to Norma Jean Almodovar and she had a similar response with some additional info. I still can't find any other cases wherein an escort that worked for an agency made a plea deal to a racketeering count for what amounts to prostitution, a misdemeanor, and that deal was for years in prison.

The MBI and the State Attorney's Office in Orange County, Florida have always abused the racketeering statute, so that part is not new, but it's rarely used on an escort and when it is, it's all about the state's demand for information and assistance in the prosecution of another. It's always a bluff because no judge in their right mind would sentence a sex worker to 3 years for that, but clearly Orange County Circuit Court Judge Janet Thorpe did. Still, even beyond all of that, I have never heard of an escort being sentenced to 3 years in prison for being an escort or admitted prostitute.

And then there's the fact that the other escort (Christina Lynn Davis) was never charged in this case and has had all of her previous prostitution cases dismissed or otherwise disposed of - and she has lots of cases. Davis made the same lying statements to MBI and DHS in this case, so why did they selectively persecute (literally) Jennifer Richmond?

And of course the statements were either sarcasm or outright lies or perhaps she was joking at the time. No way on earth that she had $500K stashed in air-conditioner vents and under carpet. And for the most part, Westgate is a dump - I wouldn't stay there - so the big play in the news on the high-life doesn't even make sense. Stashing that amount of $$$s from working in Orlando is simply not possible for the escort or the agency - it's all BS.

I am sorry, but don't have a Twitter account. No particular reason except that I've always had too much to do to deal with it.

I do intend to expound on this post in a new post, so please check back in a few days.

Thank you for the info. Apparently this has not hit the news yet, but I did find the indictment and other docs in PACER and have updated my post on the Jennifer Richmond case being a selective prosecution as it is no longer selective. Clearly the feds just took a long time to gather more information for the grand jury as it fit their criteria for a federal prosecution. There are 4 docs linked in the update on the post:

If you went to the link and read the documents, you know as much as I do. I recall from the docs that there was a hearing and the judge decided Christina was a flight risk,so no bond. And yes, the MBI involved Homeland Security in this case back in the beginning, when Jennifer Richmond was first arrested. I think Jennifer should be out of prison later this year due to good time.